French Scientists: We've Lost SARS Virus Vials

I like, in the article below, how it states the vials were in 29 boxes. 29!!

How on Earth could one lose 29 boxes? Without being seen?

Fill your briefcase/purse/hidden pockets with the contents of one box every day for a month. Or every couple days for a few months.

I would not risk being caught carrying 29 boxes, not when the contents of said boxes can fit in my pockets or other hiding places. Empty boxes can be
folded flat and hidden/recycled/disposed of.

If they have tight security such as body scans, searches, etc, then the culprit is a person who is able to just breeze past security measures
unchecked, a person who is trusted implicitly/well-respected/in authority.

Or someone on security did it. Because if security is tight, who scans/searches the security personnel? Do they search each other?

I don't know, I just find it difficult to believe that stuff like this simply gets lost.

It is amazing how security can be bypassed if one knows how to look for the flaws.

In a large factory complex a worker bought offcuts and other things every Friday, like clockwork. It was a standing joke around that you could tell
what projects this guy was doing on any given weekend.

It wasn't until he left, after twenty years, that it dawned on the security head that every week, the guy stole a wheelbarrow. Every week the
contents were checked, but not the barrow.

When in my teens I worked for a hardware store, big one! Guy well know used to park his trailer out back and wave a docket at staff. I was paying
attention and checked the docket! He tried to pay me off with a $50.00 note and in those days that was a lot of money. Honesty counts!

What may work in a place like this, bypass security via the snail mail system, that works more often than you would imagine.

All anyone needed was to be able to get 29 boxes out. Any piece of paper would do. Put the 29 small boxes in three big ones and borrow a sack truck.
No-one queries the delivery guy who walks in with boxes and walks out again with different boxes.

There are many ways to bypass security, often the simple ones are the ones overlooked. Pair of sexy legs, nice set of breasts and a lot of security
fails. Such a person, asks for help with the boxes from an employee and sails straight past security.

Security is only as good as the lowest common denominator, that would be human beings.

It is amazing how security can be bypassed if one knows how to look for the flaws.

There was a Cat 3 lab in Dartford that kept anthrax, Cholera and Yersinia pestis in a liquid Nitrogen tank and unlocked freezer warehouse at the back.
A warehouse that had its door opened all day cause the warehouse dudes couldn't be bothered to keep closing and opening it for lorry's.

There was one bit of security.....A bicycle chain on the Liquid Nitrogen Tank

Now why would any scientific organization need that many samples of this virus? Sounds more like a chemical warfare stash to me. I am sure this is not
all of their stash, probably just a small part of it.

rickymouse
Now why would any scientific organization need that many samples of this virus? Sounds more like a chemical warfare stash to me. I am sure this is not
all of their stash, probably just a small part of it.

/facepalm

Places I worked would have thousands of samples why?

When growing and dealing with microbes you want a sample of all species and as samples die and get contaminated you have dozens of back up samples.
Samples that are constantly cultured to keep the lines fresh, samples to send of to other department.

If you doing something with a microbes you sometimes culture it in the thousands, as some processes take alot of microbes to produce what you need and
to safe guard contamination you need back ups too.

2000 samples? Probably represents a days work. Thats one thing your right on, its likely only a small part of what they have, but not for any shady
reasons.
If they are researching diagnostic kits or vacines you talking double that a week.

You dont just grow 1 or 2 samples and throw crap at it and see what works

I suppose you are right, there are probably a lot of people working on this in a lab like that. It would seem that security in a place like that
should not make it possible for this kind of thing to happen though. It could also be a paperwork trail problem.

- I automatically do not believe the line of 'not infectious'. Considering they can't keep track of their stuff ... how are we to know if they can
keep track of if it's infectious or not?

Even if the whole line about how if removed from the facility it would have been sterilized (as per normal procedures entering and leaving labs) was
true (highly likely), more so the line about the fact that the refrigerator storing them at one point malfunctioned in 2012 and thus rendering them
'useless': they still kept them.

Why? Well, even if the virus is not live, the DNA fragments are still there. That DNA can be utilised in other cells. Even if it's just a few random
strands of that DNA, it is a world of discovery for any geneticist, virologist or microbiologist!

Also, something is switching on in my noggin about a recent event, I think it was the French, who brought back to life a bacterium or virus thawed
from perma-frost. I'll have another look.

It is amazing how security can be bypassed if one knows how to look for the flaws.

I second that from my own experience as a young angry teenager feeling rebellious and putting things in my socks because the security beeper thingys
in stores only scanned from just below the hips to the shoulders

An ancient virus has "come back to life" after lying dormant for at least 30,000 years, scientists say.

It was found frozen in a deep layer of the Siberian permafrost, but after it thawed it became infectious once again.

The French scientists say the contagion poses no danger to humans or animals, but other viruses could be unleashed as the ground becomes exposed.

The study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Professor Jean-Michel Claverie, from the National Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS) at the University of Aix-Marseille in France, said: "This is
the first time we've seen a virus that's still infectious after this length of time."

This is interesting and possibly quite relevant given the fact that they have stated that viruses CAN be reactivated even after a long deep freeze.

Another interesting note from the article:

Professor Jonathan Ball from Uni of Nottingham :

He added: "We freeze viruses in the laboratory to preserve them for the future. If they have a lipid envelope - like flu or HIV, for example
- then they are a bit more fragile, but the viruses with an external protein shell - like foot and mouth and common cold viruses - survive
better.

If you don't mind, I might have gander at the SARS virus a wee bit more.

originally posted by: rickymouse
Now why would any scientific organization need that many samples of this virus? Sounds more like a chemical warfare stash to me. I am sure this is not
all of their stash, probably just a small part of it.

Because you need to have multiple test wells on anything you run just to run one test, and depending on what they're doing, they may need to run an
entire series of tests off one sample batch. That leads to needing large amounts of sample or multiple vials of sample, the same sample.

So basically, you have to cook up a large amount of what you're testing so it's all uniform and make sure it's enough to run all the tests in the
series off of so that it's a constant batch. You can't run out and then cook up a new batch midway through or it will mess with your results.
Believe me, this leads to large quantities.

They have extensive paperwork and tracking systems in place to make sure this type of thing does not happen, and if it does, heads will roll and all
the relevant agencies will be crawling all over the place. You just don't misplace things like this without being able to account for it ... not for
months on end. That's the part that gets me.

And part of the log jam in the system that keeps things sitting around is that you have to arrange for proper disposal of bio-agents, too. It's not
like you can just throw them out. So things wind up sitting around, sometimes for a long time, until disposal is taken care of and can be arranged.

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